London - Labour yesterday celebrated its narrow by-election victory in Falkirk West, brushing aside the threat posed by the Scottish nationalists, writes Rachel Donnelly.
Although Labour saw its general election majority of nearly 14,000 votes cut to just 705 in Thursday's vote, the party blamed this on the lowest post-war turnout in a Scottish by-election (36.2 per cent), insisting there had been little change in underlying voting patterns. The Labour candidate, Mr Eric Joyce, won the seat with 8,492 votes (43.5 per cent of the vote) but the Scottish National Party ran a close second with its candidate, Mr David Kerr, securing 7,787 votes (40 per cent of the vote).